English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
This tenth of ten Live from London concerts was in fact a recorded live performance from California. It was no less enjoyable for that, and it was also uplifting to learn that this wasn’t in fact the ‘last’ LfL event that we will be able to enjoy, courtesy of VOCES8 and their fellow vocal ensembles (more below …).
Ever since Wigmore Hall announced their superb series of autumn concerts, all streamed live and available free of charge, I’d been looking forward to this song recital by Ian Bostridge and Imogen Cooper.
The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
Although Stile Antico’s programme article for their Live from London recital introduced their selection from the many treasures of the English Renaissance in the context of the theological debates and upheavals of the Tudor and Elizabethan years, their performance was more evocative of private chamber music than of public liturgy.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Evidently, face masks don’t stifle appreciative “Bravo!”s. And, reducing audience numbers doesn’t lower the volume of such acclamations. For, the audience at Wigmore Hall gave soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn and pianist Simon Lepper a greatly deserved warm reception and hearty response following this lunchtime recital of late-Romantic song.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
For this week’s Live from London vocal recital we moved from the home of VOCES8, St Anne and St Agnes in the City of London, to Kings Place, where The Sixteen - who have been associate artists at the venue for some time - presented a programme of music and words bound together by the theme of ‘reflection’.
'Such is your divine Disposation that both you excellently understand, and royally entertaine the Exercise of Musicke.’
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven … that old serpent … Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.’
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
There was never any doubt that the fifth of the twelve Met Stars Live in Concert broadcasts was going to be a palpably intense and vivid event, as well as a musically stunning and theatrically enervating experience.
‘Love’ was the theme for this Live from London performance by Apollo5. Given the complexity and diversity of that human emotion, and Apollo5’s reputation for versatility and diverse repertoire, ranging from Renaissance choral music to jazz, from contemporary classical works to popular song, it was no surprise that their programme spanned 500 years and several musical styles.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields have titled their autumn series of eight concerts - which are taking place at 5pm and 7.30pm on two Saturdays each month at their home venue in Trafalgar Square, and being filmed for streaming the following Thursday - ‘re:connect’.
The London Symphony Orchestra opened their Autumn 2020 season with a homage to Oliver Knussen, who died at the age of 66 in July 2018. The programme traced a national musical lineage through the twentieth century, from Britten to Knussen, on to Mark-Anthony Turnage, and entwining the LSO and Rattle too.
With the Live from London digital vocal festival entering the second half of the series, the festival’s host, VOCES8, returned to their home at St Annes and St Agnes in the City of London to present a sequence of ‘Choral Dances’ - vocal music inspired by dance, embracing diverse genres from the Renaissance madrigal to swing jazz.
Just a few unison string wriggles from the opening of Mozart’s overture to Le nozze di Figaro are enough to make any opera-lover perch on the edge of their seat, in excited anticipation of the drama in music to come, so there could be no other curtain-raiser for this Gala Concert at the Royal Opera House, the latest instalment from ‘their House’ to ‘our houses’.
"Before the ending of the day, creator of all things, we pray that, with your accustomed mercy, you may watch over us."
Nathalie Stutzmann really is an impressive conductor. The sheer elegance she brings to her formidable technique, the effortless drive towards making much of the music she conducts sound so passionate and the ability to shock us into hearing something quite new in music we think we know is really rather refreshing. Why then did this Prom sometimes feel weary, even disappointing at times?
The key to this came early in Brahms’s Tragic Overture. Stutzmann is disinclined to take a grand, even Romantic, view of what she conducts - tempi start out with such visceral, blazing fire to them they quickly become extinguished. A Stutzmann performance is often in reverse intensity - a quite odd experience, which even over quite short works causes the mind to wander. It’s certainly true that the opening to this overture had energy, almost too much of it - but the impact of the first subject didn’t feel compellingly dramatic because of that. The development, if beautifully shaped, just felt like burning embers and there was really nothing left to ignite a coda that limped towards an undramatic end.
The Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde fared somewhat better, though I had completely forgotten this piece was on the program so memories of Sir Colin Davis and the LSO in their Philips recording (even if we try to erase Jessye Norman) were still fresh in my mind from the previous day. Stutzmann doesn’t linger in this music - at all. Bar rests are very brief, almost as if they are non-existent. But on the upside, she whips up a storm of passion which is very powerful. She is riveting to watch, however. Her baton hand exerts formidable control over the orchestra; and yet her left hand literally pulls the sound out of the players. One could quibble with a few things in this performance: The cellos didn’t really sound haunting enough (despite a lot of vibrato to suggest otherwise) and some of the woodwind felt a little lacklustre. But the climax was mighty, built up with extraordinary skill with a lovely glow to the basses that resonated (they very often don’t). I’m not sure the Liebestod itself matched the intensity of the Prelude; those incredible waves of sound that should be there sounded a little short on height, and low on shattering power.
Mozart’s Requiem, which ended this concert, proved most controversial of all. The last two performances of this work I have heard - one in Tokyo (given two weeks after Fukushima), the other in London - have been given for non-secular reasons, and they proved to be overwhelming musical experiences. In every sense, Stutzmann led a performance of the Requiem which felt every inch as if it was a concert. But it was worse than that: It sounded experimental in form and structure, it was often sung poorly and it really didn’t feel much like a requiem at all.
Despite the orchestration of this work, this did not come across as a particularly dark performance. The orchestra, which had given quite beautiful tonal weight in the Brahms and Wagner, here sounded undernourished. But what orchestra could ever find any blend or depth of sound when its conductor takes the opening of the ‘Dies irae’ at such a blistering speed? I’m not sure I have ever heard it taken this fast; the ‘Confutatis’ would suffer a similar fate. Quite what Stutzmann was aiming for here left me genuinely perplexed. The sense it might be the horror, fear or sheer dread of death itself felt distinctly unconvincing especially when more conventionally driven performances of this work convey it so much more powerfully at more metrically precise tempi. But any hope she might draw some radiance or light in the more sepulchral sections of the requiem proved wishful thinking. ‘Lacrimosa’ simply underwhelmed.
As did much of the singing. Given Stutzmann’s own background as a contralto one might have expected a little more attention to the vocal detail; but apparently not. Balance between orchestra and chorus was largely skilfully done. I was less certain placing the soloists behind the orchestra was a benefit, especially since their projection seemed over-amplified. If the singing of the BBC National Chorus of Wales was either coherent or precise one really struggled to tell; pronunciation often came across as opaque, and you rarely got a sense of the voices fusing well. The quartet of soloists were very uneven. The tenor, Sunnyboy Dladla, has the most penetrating upper register - and not in the best way. I really found his upper range difficult to tolerate for any stretch of time; too often his high notes just fractured like broken glass. Oddly, the lower range of his voice is quite beautiful - but it’s just such an uneven tenor. David Shipley’s bass is overly monochromatic for my tastes, and rather unbalanced with it. I didn’t particularly notice much in the way of dynamic nuances in much of what he sang - it all sounded at one level. Fatma Said’s soprano, if rather on the small side, is exquisite, firm at the top and rich in the middle. Kathryn Rudge sometimes struggled to power her mezzo-soprano sufficiently but when she did the richness of her sound is compelling to hear.
Not the most overwhelming of Proms, I’m afraid.
Marc Bridle
This Prom will be broadcast on BBC Four on Sunday 11th August at 7pm. It is also available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days.
Fatma Said - soprano, Kathryn Rudge - mezzo-soprano, Sunnyboy Dladla - tenor, David Shipley - bass, Nathalie Stutzmann - conductor, BBC National Chorus of Wales, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Royal Albert Hall, London 7th August 2019